


Taking Away Some Fire

by renisanz, tielan



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Complicated Relationships, F/M, Friendship, Ghost-Drift, Identity Issues, Relationship(s), The Drift (Pacific Rim)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2014-02-16
Packaged: 2018-01-12 15:37:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1190511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renisanz/pseuds/renisanz, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Friendship, love, and complicated relationships in the wake of Operation Pitfall. Not all questions have answers, but sometimes it's possible to find a place to take a breather.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking Away Some Fire

**Author's Note:**

> For the Pacific Rim Reverse Big Bang - amazing art by renisanz ([AO3](http://archiveofourown.org/users/renisanz/works)|[tumblr](http://24.media.tumblr.com/avatar_d231b1e4f040_96.png)), story by tielan ([AO3](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/works)|[tumblr](http://tielan.tumblr.com/)).
> 
> With many thanks to [Everbright](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Everbright/works) for her last minute flash-beta'ing of the story!
> 
>  **NOTE** : Due to connection issues for renisanz, the full, finished art isn't online. This will be rectified in the next couple of days - we promise!

[ ](http://renisanz.tumblr.com/post/76805988062/art-for-pacific-rim-reverse-big-bang-with-fic-by)

Vanessa Gottlieb is looking forward to this morning.

However, after seeing the state of Raleigh Becket, sprawled facedown and mostly naked on the futon with a pillow over his head and a blanket kicked to the side, Vanessa is tempted to walk back out the door and head back to the Shatterdome to check in on her husband and her daughter.

Of course, Hermann had _seemed_ fine this morning when he climbed out of the car, but Vanessa never let herself forget the man had made _seeming_ fine into an art over the course of a lifetime of pain.

“My apologies,” Mako says, still in her pyjamas with an armload of her co-pilot’s clothing in her hands as she picks it up off the floorboards, piece by piece. “Tendo returned him last night. Apparently, he got...rowdy.”

“Did Tendo say what kind of rowdy?” At the silence, Vanessa glances over at Mako who’s showing a distinct flush. She begins to laugh. “And you made him sleep on the couch?”

“The problem is not when he comes home.” Mako pulls aside a set of doors to reveal the laundry space and begins shoving clothes into the washing machine. She sounds grumpy. “The problem is when he wakes _up_.”

Vanessa hides her smile before Mako emerges. She knows the annoyance of dissonant body clocks. Hermann is naturally a night owl, while her years in modelling required early nights and early mornings. Sometimes she thinks it’s a wonder they conceived Gail at all, although they were certainly trying.

“We can still do things,” Mako says, pulling the doors of the laundry space closed. “I just cannot complain about Raleigh.”

Her tone is teasing, but there is no response from the futon, not even a grunt.

“I think he’s out of it.” Vanessa says, smiling as she puts her handbag down beside the futon.

“Would you like tea?” Mako asks. “Coffee? We have some in the jar...”

“Mako, I’m British; I’ll _always_ take tea.”

“I...We ran out of black the other day and— Is green okay?”

“Green is fine.” Vanessa watches the young woman cover her mouth in a yawn as she puts the kettle on. “Mako, have you had breakfast yet?”

Mako shakes her head. “But it is okay...”

“I’ll drink tea, you’ll have some breakfast.”

“But you came over—”

“To see _you_.” Vanessa tells her. “The rest of it is window dressing. Don’t make me order you, Mako...”

Hunger and common sense wins out over whatever politeness Mako imagines should be in operation at 9am on a Saturday morning. Vanessa takes herself out to the sunroom – an east-facing balcony that takes in the sunlit view of the Hong Kong hills as Mako boils tea and prepares herself something to eat.

“How is Dr. Gottlieb after last night?”

“If he had a hangover, he didn’t complain of it.” Vanessa changes the topic. “Did you see Herc?”

“No.” Mako’s voice is soft over the sound of water pouring into a teapot. “He was out in the car when Tendo brought Raleigh in, but I didn’t go out to see him. I said they could stay here, but Tendo said they would be fine.”

She brings a tray over and sets it on the low table, and drops down to the floor to serve – a teapot, two teacups, and a bowl of what looks like instant noodles. She doesn’t stand on ceremony, flipping the cups upright and pouring out the tea in a neat stream.

“I don’t think taking Herc out to get him drunk was a good idea. One can…” She hesitates as she finishes pouring out the tea. “It is possible to lose too much.”

Vanessa accepts the cup handed to her with both hands. “Does Raleigh agree?”

“Raleigh feels he cannot say anything. Yancy was his brother, not his son. It is…different. And he…he has me, now.”

“Do you think Herc would be better left alone, then?”

“No.” Mako’s response is immediate and sure. “He should be with people who care for him – who can be there for him. It will not take away the pain but it helps.”

She speaks with certainty, and Vanessa wonders how much of it is the transferred memory of her co-pilot’s loss.

The PPDC file on Raleigh Becket has a four year gap – from the time he left the Jaeger program up until Pentecost found him working on the Wall. But the last entries before the gap were…disturbing. Nightmares, depression, sleep apnea, clumsiness. The formerly outgoing and gregarious young man became withdrawn and sullen, and he was watched for suicidal tendencies.

Vanessa read it through several times. As a PPDC PR Officer, she had access to all non-confidential files of personnel upon request, and so the day after she heard that Mako had been assigned to refurbish Gipsy Danger, she had an application in for the Becket brothers' files. She had a hunch. It was only a matter of time before Pentecost began looking for his lost Ranger, and if things were going to go pear-shaped, she wanted to have an idea of what she’d be smoothing over. But when Hermann’s daily call reported that Mako had been found Drift-compatible with Raleigh, Vanessa had started reading more carefully about the Becket Boys – and more than the official file: every scrap of news and gossip she could get her hands on.

Beside her, Mako slurps her noodles noisily, then swallows and apologises. “How are you and Gail?”

“Oh, we’re fine. Gail’s growing as usual. She’s worked out how to hold herself upright and blow raspberries, and thinks it’s the greatest fun to blow them at people.” Vanessa sighs a little and sips her tea. “It seems impossible that she was born five months ago – it feels like just the other week.”

Mako regards her. “And you? How is the healing going?”

“Slower than I’d like. It’s not unexpected after thirty.”

“Did the doctor not say it would go faster if you rested?”

“Yes.”

“And have you been resting?”

“Resting isn’t exactly an easy thing in a household with a four month old baby and my husband,” Vanessa says dryly. “And when Newt drops in every other day…”

Lately it’s been every day. Which Vanessa doesn’t mind so much – she rather likes Newt in all his exasperating enthusiasm – but he does tend to make things…unrestful.

Mako doesn’t comment –possibly because there’s nothing she would consider polite that can be said about the state of Vanessa’s household. Or possibly because she has a mouthful of noodles and isn’t going to talk through them. Sometimes it’s nice to eat with someone who observes basic table manners.

“How are things between you and Raleigh? In general terms,” Vanessa adds with a smiling twinkle. “You don’t have to give me the dirty little details.”

A shrug is most of her answer. “We are…good.”

“You sound a little…surprised?”

This time, Mako doesn’t have food in her mouth, but she still hesitates. “I never had time for anyone before – in my life. There was always the war on. The _kaiju_ to fight. Now that there is not…”

It’s a sentiment that Vanessa has seen and heard frequently of late. Mostly among those who worked with the PPDC, but also echoing throughout the world, too. _What now?_

For those who dedicated themselves to the defence of Earth in the PPDC – those like Mako and Raleigh, like Hermann, like Newt, like Herc Hansen and Tendo Choi – the defeat of the kaiju is a relief, but also leaves a lingering hole in their lives of the last ten years.

Some will adapt to the new world. Some will not.

Mako is still talking, almost reflectively. “Raleigh is older. He has worked outside the Shatterdomes. Survived on his own.”

“You don’t _need_ to survive on your own, Mako.”

“I do not want to. And,” she glances back at the futon and the man still slumbering there. “I do not think he would let me, in any case. He has lost too much to be willing to lose more.”

“And you? You’re okay with that?”

“He is my co-pilot.”

And that was the answer Vanessa feared.

She trusts Pentecost’s paternal instincts – he would never have allowed Mako to Drift with someone who wasn’t a decent person at his core, but the man was also a Marshal fighting a war – and a man. And Vanessa is very well aware that men do not always hold other men to high standards of decent behaviour when it comes to women.

Hermann and Newt and Tendo may say Raleigh Becket’s a good guy, but the man in a relationship with Mako Mori is also seven years her senior and was last listed as having such major pychological issues that the Jaeger neuro-psych recommended he never be allowed back into a Jaeger Conn-Pod again.

Not something Vanessa wants for her friend. Also, not something she has a say in.

Still, Vanessa figures if she has an idea of the picture, she can prepare for the fallout. Be ready to help if things go bad.

“You are worried?”

Mako is watching her with the sharp perception that always made her seem so much older than her age.

“Well, yes.” Vanessa pushed back an errant strand of hair that was tickling her cheek. “You’re twenty-one, Mako. You have a lot of options available to you, and I know you’re looking into them. Just…don’t limit yourself.”

She wonders if Mako knows exactly what she means; if the thoughtful look the young woman gives her is as piercing as she thinks it is. But after a moment, Mako nods. “Okay.”

“So,” she says after a moment of silent awkwardness, “have the Japanese consortium made another offer yet?”

“Yes. It was better, but still not enough.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being aware of your value,” Vanessa reminds her, relieved that they’re moving the conversation through less fraught channels. “And you have a lot of practical skill with Jaeger tech, and experience with the neural interfaces. Just because you want to help rebuild Japan shouldn’t mean they should short-change your skills.”

“I know.” A smile peeps out past the fading blue sidelocks. “Raleigh said the same.”

Score one for Mr. Becket, then. Vanessa smiles. “I know you’re looking at options outside the PPDC, but has _he_ considered the PPDC re-employment offer?”

“Considered, yes. He…I do not think he wants to go back to the PPDC. He only came back because _sensei_ challenged him to die in a Jaeger instead of on the Wall.”

“And now he’s doing neither.”

“For which we are both very relieved.” Mako sets the empty bowl of noodles on the tray and sighs, planting her hands on the mat behind her and leaning back in the manner of someone taking a moment’s breath. And Vanessa sits in the quiet, and draws her own long, quiet breath. It’s so nice here – no baby, no husband, no husband’s-Drift-partner…

She’s almost forgotten how silence feels.

The reverie is broken as Mako turns to her. “So. You were going to show me how to do this ‘facial’ thing?”

Vanessa smiles. “If you don’t want to—”

“I want to.” Mako smiles. “I… It will be nice to learn something that is unimportant.” She wrinkles her nose. “I did not mean unimportant, but…unnecessary… Oh,” she huffs, annoyed with herself for not being able to find the right words.

Vanessa laughs. “It’s okay, Mako. I know what you’re trying to say. And, yes, it’s unnecessary in the big scheme of things, but it can make you feel good in the _small_ scheme of things, and sometimes that’s important, too.”

Important for both of them, she thinks as she lays out the products she brought with her while Mako takes the tray and her noodle bowl, leaving the teapot and cups on the table. She needs the time out from being nothing but a mothering thing these last few months, and Mako was happy – eager, even – to catch up with her.

There’s nothing elaborate or extensive here, just a face mask, some skin products, and a few nail polishes that Mako’s expressed an interest in before. They’ll chat, cleanse, and enjoy each other’s company. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.

“So,” Mako says, dropping comfortably down onto the mats. “What is first?”

Vanessa starts with cleanser, showing Mako how to gently rub it into the skin with her fingers before cleaning it off with a face washer. The mask goes on next – ugly avocado green on their darker skins, and Mako laughs at herself in the little hand mirror that Vanessa produces.

“There are some kinds of mud that are really beneficial to the skin,” Vanessa tells her. “But mostly I like these because it makes me feel good. Pampered.”

“Pampered?”

“Luxurious. Like I don’t have to be useful all the time. I can just…enjoy being.”

“Enjoy being what?”

“Being me. Existing. Being alive.”

“Oh.” Mako sits quiet for a long moment, and Vanessa waits. It can take her a while to voice her thoughts, partly for thinking over how to say things, partly because it’s not in her nature to just blurt everything out. “Sometimes, it seems so hard without…without _sensei_. He was always there for me. And now he is not. And I do not know… I fear forgetting him.” She trails off, then takes a deep breath and sets her shoulders. “It is not so hard for me as it was for Raleigh, at least.”

“It’s difficult enough. Your loss doesn’t have to be as…traumatic as his to still hurt.”

“No.” Mako scrapes some mask mud out from beneath her nails. “I dream of him sometimes. Of _sensei_ ,” she qualifies, staring down at her hands. “Sometimes they are dreams, and sometimes they are memories. But when they are memories, they are not always mine. Or Raleigh’s.”

The Becket brothers had worked with Pentecost in Lima and in Anchorage. Like many others in the Jaeger program, they respected his ethos and his command, even if their psych reports had indicated they thought he was too cautious, too straight-laced.

“Interesting to see him as others saw him.” Vanessa hesitates over her next question. “Does that happen often? Ghost-Drifting with Yancy’s memories?”

“Raleigh says he would sometimes wake up not quite sure which Becket he was.”

“Do you wake up like that?”

“No. There is more difference between me and Yancy than there is between Raleigh and Yancy. Still, it is…sometimes…strange.”

Dreaming the memories of a dead man. “No stranger than dreaming of _kaiju_ , I suppose.”

She says it more to herself than to Mako, but Mako turns, her eyes wide. “Is that happening to Dr. Gottlieb?”

Vanessa presses her lips together. “Sometimes, I think. He doesn’t always tell me.” Hermann doesn’t like to bother her with his personal troubles. It’s a point of contention between them, and always has been. “I mostly hear about it from Newt.”

“Dr. Geizsler would be…eager to share.” Mako slants a gaze at her. “Does it bother you?”

“Newt’s enthusiasm? Or the fact that he and Hermann are all mixed up with a baby kaiju brain?” Vanessa’s mouth twists in a wry smile. “Do I get option C, ‘all of the above’?”

The timer buzzes on her phone, and she gets to her feet, relieved at the interruption. “Time to clean up.”

As she shows Mako how to wash off the mask, a part of Vanessa wonders whether she really wants to understand more about the Drift and how it affects people. She’s read all the literature on it – everything she has access to. There’s not much. She has a little more clearance than the public or the media, but much of it is still medical records stamped private and only accessible to those in the line of command or those appealing through the line of command.

Does it really matter in the end? Her husband Drifted with Newt Geizsler and the brain of a dead baby kaiju, and now…

Now she’s not sure exactly _who_ she climbs into bed with at the end of the day.

A noise out in the living area makes Mako go out to check on Raleigh, and Vanessa cleans the mask off her face and runs the washcloth under the tap as she studies herself in the mirror.

She doesn’t look after herself as carefully as she used to, which is kind of a relief and kind of a regret. There are old friends – both from the fashion industry and from the PR machine – who’ve implied that she’s ‘let herself go’. Nothing so explicit, of course. Just comments that hold enough snideness – intentional and unintentional – to sting.

Vanessa loves her life. Her career. Her daughter. Her husband.

She just wishes she had a better handle on…everything, really. That she didn’t feel so uncertain about her life – about whether she’s a good mother, a good wife. About whether she wants to be parroting the party line for the rest of her career – or putting a good face on the mess when things go bad. About whether Hermann’s emotional distance is just post-natal depression on her part or if it’s him as well, or if it’s a by-product of the Drift with Newt.

 _That’s not what you’re here for today,_ she reminds herself. _Just relax. Be Vanessa. Get yourself sorted out and the rest of it will follow._

She just hope she likes it where the rest of it follows.

There’s a laugh out in the living area, a giggle and a murmur. With a certain amount of caution, Vanessa pushes open the bathroom door to find Mako pinned beneath Raleigh on the futon. His hands are already up under her shirt, and he’s kissing her throat while she giggles.

There are a few options. Clear her throat. Walk through the room. Speak up.

As it turns out, she doesn’t have to use any of them. Mako says something in Japanese, and Raleigh pauses. Then lifts his head very slowly to look at Vanessa, blue eyes blinking.

“Erm,” he says. “Hi, Vanessa.”

“Hello, Mr. Becket.”

He winces a little at the formality, but looks down at Mako. “Is that why you smell so nice?”

“I thought I smelled nice all the time?”

“Well, nice- _er_.” He eases off Mako, incidentally grabbing the blanket that’s clinging to the futon by one corner and dragging it over himself. Vanessa’s lips twitch, because Raleigh’s not usually the modest sort. Which means he’s hiding something else. “Right. If you ladies are done with the bathroom, I think I might get a shower...”

Vanessa refrains from inquiring, ‘ _Hot or cold?_ ’ Raleigh leans down to plant a kiss on Mako’s mouth before heading for the bathroom. As he comes towards Vanessa, their gazes meet, blue to brown. His eyes narrow slightly as she smiles – a polite smile, no teeth. And yet both she and Raleigh Becket are very much aware that teeth have been shown.

She’s in his way, standing in the bathroom door. Waiting until the last moment to step aside is very deliberate. The way he shuts the door is also very deliberate – a firm and definite closing. A moment later, the lock engages.

“So,” Vanessa crosses over to the kitchen, behaving as though nothing’s happened, “mornings?”

“Yes.”

The shower starts up in a squeal of pipes and the patter of spray.

“I’m kind of surprised he’s capable of standing upright.”

Mako is distinctly pink as she climbs off the futon and smooths her shirt down before padding over to the kitchen and putting on the kettle. “Oh, once Raleigh is awake, he is awake. He doesn’t sleep in anymore.”

“Anymore?”

“The early years after Yancy died,” she pauses to tap out the used leaves from the tea strainer, “he had trouble getting up. Like a great weight on him.”

“Depression.”

“Yes.” Mako opens a tin of tea and spoons it into the teapot again. “He is past that now. Only, sometimes it is…difficult. To keep going.”

Vanessa knows the feeling. A lack of energy, a lack of enthusiasm, a lack of life. There have been mornings when it’s all she can do to get up, to bring Gail back to bed and feed her. When all she wants is a cuddle from Hermann – who’s never been the cuddling kind to start with – and she gets a careful pat on the knee.

“The Marshal loved you,” she says, putting her own troubles aside.

“Yes. And I was prepared at least…” Mako falls silent, then assays a smile. “I do not mean to… Raleigh is a…is a great good for me. But…”

“Pentecost shaped who you are,” Vanessa says. “He’s been a major part of your life for the last eight years. It’s okay to miss him.”

“I know.”

“Raleigh says that, too, doesn’t he?”

“Yes.” This time the smile is closer to real, with a touch of fondness. “I am very fortunate to have him.”

Vanessa smiles back. “Maybe he’s the lucky one to have you.”

Mako gives a little side nod that might be reluctant agreement or might just be her concentrating on making the tea, but doesn’t reply.

They take the teapot back to the sunroom, and Vanessa shows her how to tone and moisturise.

Raleigh leans into the sunroom just as Vanessa is applying moisturiser on Mako’s forehead and cheeks. He’s washed, shaved, clothed, and shod. “I’m just going out to the bakery. Want anything?”

Mako twists around to look at him, the pinkish-white dots of cream standing out on the olive-gold of her skin. “Pork buns – the baked ones.”

“Already on the list.” Raleigh says, grinning down at her, his whole being focused on her. “Why do you think I’m going out? Vanessa?”

“I’d love a pork bun,” Vanessa answers.

“Do we need anything else?”

“No.”

“Okay.” He crouches down beside Mako and leans in. “Kiss?”

She gurgles with laughter. “I have cream on my face!”

“That’s not usually a problem…”

“Raleigh!” But Mako kisses him soundly, swipes his cheek clean of moisturiser, and shoos him away, her skin a furious pink. Raleigh goes with a smirk, a cheery step, and a quick, acknowledging glance in Vanessa’s direction.

“Cocky,” Vanessa observes after the apartment door closes behind him. “In more ways than one.”

Mako winces. “He is not usually like that. Not around guests.”

“Must be last night’s excesses.” Although Vanessa is pretty sure that was Raleigh Becket’s way of saying that he’s aware she’s watching him, and he’s serious about Mako.

That’s fine; after all, Vanessa’s not here to chase him away from Mako, she’s just here for Mako.

She and Mako moisturise their faces, then continue on with their hands, and she gives Mako a hand massage, and they just sit and sip tea and talk of inconsequentials rather than the more serious topics of love and loss that occupied them before. Occasionally Vanessa catches Mako looking pensively her way, but the younger woman doesn’t ask whatever questions hover on her tongue.

She’s grateful for the silence.

Vanessa, for her part, doesn’t ask Mako the questions she had in mind to ask before she arrived at the apartment and found Raleigh out on the couch.

She doesn’t need to.

It’s fairly obvious that Mako’s content – certainly more content than Vanessa’s ever known her to be. Her demons are laid to rest, her life is full of promise, and she has a partner who clearly adores her, and seems to be a far cry from the young man he was before his brother died – or even just after.

And if that seeming isn’t truth? Well, that will come out in time. And Vanessa will be there for Mako because Mako is her friend – and, in an odd kind of way, a little like a younger sister. Someone she can look after, who doesn’t _need_ her, but is glad of her presence all the same.

Vanessa’s happy that Mako is content with her life.

She just wishes she could find a little of that contentment herself.

* * *

[ ](http://renisanz.tumblr.com/post/76805988062/art-for-pacific-rim-reverse-big-bang-with-fic-by)

Vanessa makes it back to the Shatterdome around midafternoon, after eating lunch with Mako and Raleigh. The shared meal is an olive branch of sorts to Raleigh and he accepts it gracefully.

Score another one for Mr. Becket.

As Vanessa gets out of the car, though, she feels tired. In spite of the morning, getting to spend time with Mako, in spite of her time out from being a mother, the knowledge that everything is just waiting for her when she walks back into the lab is almost more than she can bear.

There’s a kind of irony in it; a year ago, she _was_ content. Even with the _kaiju_ coming through the Breach and the outlook grim, she was married to a man who adored her nearly as much as he adored his mathematics, and her life was filled with the busyness of her career. Mako was the one who sent her brief emails and texts with her discontent glowing in every letter, and Vanessa was sad that Mako felt so frustrated with her life, but she was glad for her own.

Now…

 _Things will get better,_ she tells herself as she shuts the door and turns towards the gargantuan bulk of the Shatterdome. _They have to._

And then her heart sinks.

Newt is crossing the parking lot, tattooed arms holding a wide-eyed and crane-necked Gail in his arms. “Hey look, Gail, it’s mommy!”

But Gail sees her mum every day, she’s more interested in the seagulls that have just squawked overhead. Still, when Vanessa comes in close, Gail reaches for her with that darling smile of ‘oh, it’s _you!_ ’ And tucks her head up against Vanessa’s throat in a little hug.

The emptiness in Vanessa is a little less empty. She rubs her cheek into her daughter’s tiny curls and looks over at Newt. “Is Hermann okay?”

“Oh, he’s fine.” Newt pushes his glasses up his nose and folds his arms. “Grumpy and tired, but fine. Mostly grumpy, but that’s Hermann for you. He didn’t even drink that much last night, for all his complaining and grumbling today. We left him to come out for a bit of muggy air. Right, Gail?”

It stings a little that Hermann would offload his pain to Newt, but not to her. Vanessa squashes it down as Newt pokes Gail in the belly – just enough to tickle – and the little girl giggles and hides her face in Vanessa’s throat again while Vanessa shifts her around to her hip so she’s not so heavy and her arms won’t be hurting by the time she gets inside the Shatterdome.

If only the weight on her heart could be moved so easily.

She glances over Newt. “You seem okay after last night.”

“Oh, yeah, drinking never did very much for me. I just get chattier and louder. And tattooed. Which, you know, already loud and chatty and tattooed, so…even more? How was Raleigh, by the way? He seemed to be trying to keep up with Herc which I could have _told_ him was a mistake, because, hello, Australians?”

“Raleigh looked fine when he got up. If he had a hangover, he wasn’t showing it.”

“Ah, the joy of youth,” Newt says promptly. “Hey, do you ever feel like you don’t really know what he’s thinking? I mean, apart from when he looks at Mako because how he feels is pretty much written all over his face then. But the rest of the time?”

Vanessa starts for the entry to the Shatterdome, wanting out of the sun and the heat. She’d like to get away from Newt for just a few seconds, too, just long enough to hug her baby and get her equilibrium back. Of course, that’s not going to happen – not with Newt following her inside the Shatterdome, still chattering away.

“…it’s like, I know people who saw him take down Chuck Hansen in a fight and they said one minute he’s telling Mako not to do anything and the next he’s smashing Hansen into the floor. I mean, he didn’t even react when I went all _kaiju_ groupie on him and everything…”

“Newt.” They reach the main doors of the facility.

He tilts his head as they swipe into the Shatterdome. “Okay, okay, I’m nervous. I don’t usually chatter this much. You wanna know why?”

Vanessa sighs. “You’re going to tell me anyway, aren’t you?”

“Well, okay, yeah, I am.” But he falls silent as they walk down the corridor and into the lift. The lift doors close behind them.

Vanessa turns to Newt. Her stomach is in freefall and it has nothing to do with their ascent in the lift. She’s never been one to beat around the bush. She’s not going to start now. So she says what’s on her mind. Makes it a statement, not a question – because there’s no question about it. “You’re in love with Hermann.”

Newt blinks. Then rallies without artifice. That’s one thing about Newt, at least, he’s not the lying type. “Well, yeah. Kind of. I mean, it’s been coming on for a while now, I guess, not that we did anything about it. Not that _I_ did anything about it. Because he’s actually in love with you. Like, kind of crazy in love. And because of that whole...thing...with the baby _kaiju_ and—well, no, not _because_ of the baby _kaiju_ but—”

“The Drift,” she says wearily. “It means you’re a little in love with me, too.”

“You know?”

“It’s the Drift.” She doesn’t quite laugh through the lump in her throat. “I’ve had access to the PPDC files on the pilots and the Drift for the last five years, Newt. I know what can happen between pilots. And I’ve been in the fashion industry since I was seventeen, so I know when a guy wants me.”

“But this isn’t just, you know, sex. This is... Well, okay, part of it is sex. Not that I expect someone like you would be interested in me – but then, that’s what I thought when Hermann first introduced you: what’s someone like you doing with _him_?”

There’s a certain irony in that question – namely, because she asks herself that question all the time. Only, she doesn’t ask it with Newt’s emphasis.

“Do you understand now?”

“Yes.” Newt has his hands on his hips, balancing lightly on the balls of his feet. In his white shirt and dark trousers, he looks – to Vanessa’s mind, anyway – a little like a tattooed Peter Pan. It’s not so outlandish a comparison – Newt maintains an essential youthfulness about him in spite of his age. “I know he’s crazy about you,” he says in his frank way. “And kind of scared, too. And I have a feeling that might be partly my fault – because when we met, all I could think was, ‘how could she possibly want a cripple?’ Which was bad of me, yeah, I know, but it’s what went through my head, okay? And now I know about the— How you and he— The whole...dealing with the leg thing and what happened in Berlin—I mean, I get it. I get it the way Hermann got it so much faster back then because, well, he’s Hermann. But I think I left some of me in Hermann, too. Not the good parts, either. Sorry.”

The lift stops and the doors slide open. Vanessa looks down the familiar corridor leading towards the lab that Hermann and Newt still share in spite of the program being taken back to skeletal basics, and doesn’t step out of the lift. If they’re going to have this conversation now, she doesn’t want Hermann to be in earshot. Because, yes, this is about him, but she has enough pride to want to compose herself after it.

Vanessa turns to Newt. “Does all this have a point?”

“Kind of. It’s just... I’m nervous. Because I kind of screwed him up a bit when we Drifted, and I don’t think I can put him back together the way he was before. And...and yeah, I’m in love with him. A bit. Which he knows. But he doesn’t reciprocate like that. I mean, you were only just in the realm of possibility for him four years ago, and even that was kind of unexpected...”

And not just for Hermann.

_Would you like me to explain this, or to summarise it, Ms. Wilkington? I know you can understand it – I’ve looked into your academic history – the question is whether you want to._

He’d given her a respect that men didn’t usually give her, dismissing her as a pretty face – or, worse, not caring whether or not she had a brain. And if Vanessa didn’t understand everything he talked about, well, very few people did.

He’d given her respect, and she’d given him desire – in the end.

 _It has been a long time. And I was never accounted very good at this sort of thing,_ he added with a brief smile. _Humanity, you understand._

_Do you want me?_

_I sincerely doubt there’s a man in the world who hasn’t looked at you and wanted you, however briefly._ There was a tinge of wistfulness in his expression as he looked at her, then looked away, his cheeks burning. _I am conscious of the compliment, Vanessa. But I fear I’m not a wise choice for your act of reclamation._

She’d persuaded him otherwise; he’d shown himself otherwise. And somewhere between friendship and trust, Vanessa had fallen in love with Hermann – with both the surly and brilliant mathematician and the considerate and private man.

Vanessa had known the man Hermann had been before he Drifted with Newton Geizsler. She’s not sure she knows the man he is now.

“Newt.” She waits for him to look at her. “What do you want?”

“I want him not to be afraid,” he bursts out. “I want him to be happy but I think I’ve made him afraid of failing you and Gail. Because I have these deep-seated issues...ones that you don’t need to know about. Not straight away, at least. But, yeah, what with the post-natal stuff and the medical things, and he hates feeling helpless anyway, and this isn’t something he can _solve_. I mean, I want to fix it, too, which is why I’m here talking to you in the first place, but—”

Vanessa holds up one hand to stop him. The words fall around her like rain, Newt’s particular brand of verbal diarrhoea, and she needs enough time to stop and _absorb_ what he’s saying.

Some of it she knew already. She just didn’t know that Newt knew, too. And she’s...not sure what to think of it. What to make of it.

“So this is all about Hermann?”

“Well, yes. No. I mean, it’s about me, too. Because, thanks to the Drift, I’m kind of Hermann and Hermann’s kind of me, too. Not totally, obviously, because he’s still uptight as a Victorian tea party, and there’s the whole baby _kaiju_ part to consider...” He catches a look at her face. “So. My point is that, yeah, I might want him a little, and I might want you a little, but, you know, I’m an adult – at least I like to think so – and I can cope with disappointment. And, you know, I like you, too. I mean, I see why Hermann’s in love with you, and I respect that. And it’s kind of like, my feelings as well as his. So, you know, I’ll just imprint on your daughter and, hah, marry her when she’s sixteen. That’s mostly a joke, by the way,” he hastens to add.

“I read Twilight, Newt. I know it’s a joke.”

He tilts his head, regarding her owlishly for a moment. “You do? Great. Because...it’s not all a joke.”

He makes a kind of cringing motion like he’s expecting her to lash out at him. Vanessa restrains her first instinct, which is to demand, _What?_

After a moment, Newt continues. “You see, when I hold her, she...she feels like she’s mine. Like, I know, up here,” he waves a finger up by his temple, “that she’s yours and Hermann’s, but when she’s cuddling up to me, I don’t know, a part of my brain kind of co-opts the rest of me and I, I don’t know, I never liked kids, but it’s like this possessive wave that drowns out the bit that doesn’t like kids and all of a sudden she’s _my_ little girl. Don’t freak out, please?”

“I haven’t freaked out yet in this conversation, why would you think I’d freak out now?”

“I don’t know. It just seems like the kind of thing a normal person would do.”

Laughter bubbles up in Vanessa’s throat. She squashes it down and away. If she lets it out, it might turn hysterical. Vanessa looks down at Gail’s tiny curls, still nestled against her.

“Newt, you’ve just more or less confessed to alienation of my husband’s affections because the two of you drifted with a baby _kaiju_ , and you’re passing your insecurities on to him. And yet I’m still standing here listening to you. Do you _really_ think we’re normal?”

“I’ve never been very good at normal. Or whatever the going definition for it is, anyway.” Newt scratches his head. To Vanessa’s gaze, the movement seems a little anxious. “And now neither Hermann nor I are even _close_ to normal and...there’s you.”

“And there’s me,” she echoes. “And Gail.”

“And Gail, too. And he still loves you, but...he thinks – _I_ think – that we’re weird now – although we were pretty weird before, too – and you might not want us...I mean, him. But you know how he is – he doesn’t make the first move and I didn’t want—” Newt takes a deep breath. “I want the best for you. For both of you. Whether or not that includes me. I mean, I obviously hope it does, but...I’m Drift-compatible with Hermann. That doesn’t mean I have a—a _right_ to him. I mean, I like to think that he’s a _little_ bit fond of me, at least, but you know, it wasn’t actually _me_ that he married and—”

Vanessa puts her hand over his mouth to stop him talking. If she lets him, he’ll talk all day. And it won’t get them anywhere, because as good as Newt’s intentions are, he just confuses the matter.

She wants to talk to Hermann about this – she wants to hear it from him. Because it makes sense of a lot of things that have been worrying her lately, and if it’s not going to end in a stiff and brutally polite divorce then maybe she’ll feel reassured by actually _having_ the conversation she’s been avoiding up until now.

“We need to talk.”

“Ai aught at aas aat ee er--”

“We need to talk _with Hermann_ about this. Because it’s about him, too.”

Newt nods, and Vanessa takes her hand away. “So...now?”

She takes a deep breath. “I suppose.”

“You’re up for it now?”

“I’d rather do it sooner than wait and wonder for later.” Best to know the worst first. Although, it doesn’t sound like it would be the _worst_. Just...something that needs to be worked out between them. All of them.

“Okay.” Newt indicates the corridor in front of them. “So, ladies first.”

The gesture and the phrase is Hermann’s – the polite formalities that are his bulwark and protection in dealing with the people around him. And Vanessa smiles faintly at the old-fashioned courtesies coming from a man who, if anything, is all about new sensibilities, and her spirits lift a little as the steps out into the corridor lights.

And if it’s not contentment, exactly, well, at least it’s hope.

 

_Contentment consists not in adding more fuel,  
but in taking away some fire._

~Thomas Fuller~


End file.
